Two All Blacks praised as 'potential superstars' in France whitewash

The All Blacks rolled out some new faces throughout a three-game, three-win series hosting France this July, but it wasn’t just the newbies who impressed.

With six debutants earning their first minutes in the black jersey to begin the 2025 international season, former All Blacks lock Steve Gordon has identified two members of the tight five as immensely promising talents.

Well qualified to recognise young talent in the low numbers, Gordon reviewed the series win over a resilient French outfit missing some superstars.

“Well, they’ll be pleased they got it done,” Gordon told Newstalk ZB‘s Jason Pine.

“It’s always nice to whitewash a team and win a series three-nil, but I think there’d be a little bit of frustration they didn’t get the coordination, the cohesion that perhaps they were looking for out of the series.

“But they did expose a lot of players to Test rugby and the international environment.

“I think they’ll be quietly confident, too, that they’ve unearthed a few new potential superstars in their squad going forward.”

Balancing the good with the bad, Gordon highlighted some concerning areas and narrowed in on the two players he’s most excited about.

“I think they’ve got to look at their kicking game. I don’t think they kicked particularly well. They didn’t find grass, and their kick-chase needs a little bit of work.

“I think they’ve unearthed a real potential damaging scrummager in Fletcher Newell. He has just been incredible over the last two months in his rugby and in particular, his scrummaging.

“And obviously the talking point in Fabian Holland. Just how sensational he’s been playing three full Tests as a 22-year-old making his debut for the All Blacks in his debut season, which is outstanding.

“I think they’ll be concerned in a few areas that they’ll really want to go away and work on. But, any footy, and any time you’ve got new players getting exposed to that environment and time in the middle, is just gold.

“Coming up against a French team in that third Test that was a hell of a lot more organised and cohesive compared to the first two, I think (Razor) would have enjoyed seeing how his side responded to that pressure and what the French brought. How they responded to it, how they broke it down.

“If you go back to Ardie (Savea’s) comments from after the game, they just had to find a way to get it done and they did that successfully.”

Circling back to Newell, who fell out of favour for the matchday 23 late last year as selectors looked to Test rookie Pasilio Tosi in the No. 18 jersey behind Tyrel Lomax, Gordon explained the luxury of having an elite scrummager in the team’s toolkit.

“I think they’ll look at that and see who he’s scrummaging against, and the opposition scrum, and how they best employ him.

“If they think that they’re coming up against a scrum that he can really dominate from the start, they’d start him. Why wouldn’t you? Have the game won by halftime and have the opposition, their forward pack, their mentality shattered because they can’t compete at scrum time.

“Or, if it’s someone like the bomb squad that the South Africans employ, you may want to bring him on to sure things up when they bring on their forward pack after 55 minutes. It’d be ideal to introduce someone like Fletcher Newell, who is going to put it on people, and he’s showing it now in the Test arena that he can upset and dominate at scrum time.”

As for Holland, the highly touted youngster only had to wait until his eligibility was secured to make his Test debut, having moved from the Netherlands to New Zealand as a teenager.

Gordon praised the Highlanders’ hardman’s “ability to compete” as his greatest attribute.

“You made mention earlier of his tackle count; 37 tackles in his first two Tests, none missed. No missed tackles, every one was a completion.

“I think his accuracy and his attention to detail for a young player introduced is quite astounding. If he can build on that and start introducing some more little subtleties as he gains confidence, he’s going to be world-class.

“The most impressive thing is he just seems to be enjoying every moment out there. He’s not overawed at all, he’s just loving the environment and stepping up big time to play for his adopted country.”